Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ.

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RE: SAFETY NOTICE, simple cures

Posted by unclestu (D) on April 8, 2015 at 22:49:25

In Reply to: SAFETY NOTICE posted by madisonears on April 8, 2015 at 20:26:32:

Use one brass screw per panel and it will do grounding as effectively, although not as mechanically as rigid. Brass, being more conductive than ferrous material, including stainless, will speed up any "eddy" currents and any extraneous voltage on the very slim chance that the chassis picks up voltage from say a shorted wire......That should actually be safer than using ferrous screws

If really neurotic, take a screw hole and run a ground wire to the central ground bus or the power inlet ground terminal from each panel with a nut. Many panels have additional screws for mounting switches, connectors, as well as heat sinks. Simply buy a longer screw and a nut to secure the wire. sometimes only a nut is required. Brass preferred, of course.


Using wire will make the sound better already as the copper is significantly more conductive than the steel panels, and, unless you have a Counterpoint unit, the chassis is not likely to be copper plated. Steel has quite a high resistance. It is better to situate the ground wire farthest away from the transformer on the panels, BTW, as the field is pushing away from the transformer and has a tendency to "wick" the magnetic field in that direction and electrically induced current will move in that direction.

Magnetically, the transformer's magnetic field is entering the chassis. Again the magnetic field "likes" to stay in the ferrous material and so does "work" in moving through the steel. With the magnetic field comes an electrical inductance which actually is induced by the magnetism moving through and creates a certain amount of voltage and current. Draining this electrical component is quite beneficial to sound as Counterpoint discovered. They also wrote a "white" paper about the subject and if you scrape the paint off their amps, you will see copper plating under the wrinkle finish black. Claim was the highs were significantly improved, BTW

Running such ground wires also works for metal equipment stands and metal speaker stands. The AC fields present on the components of both do generate a small current and again grounding them seems to "speed" up the sound as the Magnetic field is attempting to do work within the metal platforms and legs. While trying to move the steel component , it really can not because of the mass involved and thus the "work" being exerted is literally energy wasted. The magnetic inductance still produces an electrical field however, and draining any such results will help lower the induced currents.

I normally run a ground wire diagonally across a tall rack from say left top corner to right lower corner as the steel has considerable resistance. MY racks are 5 feet tall and 22 inches wide, BTW. This way the "eddy" currents are more equally drained and there is less of a voltage differential from top to bottom

OF course,if you are already neurotic about the metal chassis, metal racks only one step away and since power cords are often snaked through them, something to consider also, particularly when employing certain makes of audiophile PC's. My racks are grounded to the third Ac terminal not because I am especially worried, but to better sound.

AS always YMMV

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